Increasing readership is the number one priority for UK digital publishers in 2025, according to a report released by the Association of Online Publishers (AOP).
The ‘Digital Publishing: Outlook and Priorities for 2025’ report, sponsored by The Trade Desk, is based on a survey of 120 participants from digital publishing and solutions providers between December 2024 and January 2025.
It was found that 85% of publishers agreed or strongly agreed that “growing our readership” is important this year, followed by “developing new revenue streams through product innovation” at 80% and “increasing advertising revenues” at 79%. Solutions providers returned the same top three. Interestingly, last year’s top priorities – “data privacy and compliance,” “recruiting and retaining talent,” and “ensuring a diverse and inclusive workforce” – all fell substantially down the list.
When it comes to growing revenue, 66% agreed or strongly agreed that “increasing revenues from advertisers” described their approach, complemented by increased content output (52%) and changing the nature of this output to attract more readers/viewers (40%).
“Readers are the wellspring from which all other revenues flow, so it’s no surprise to see publishers prioritise growth in this area,” said Richard Reeves, Managing Director at AOP. “Going back to the basics of building an audience and effectively monetising this audience is the key to survival in an era of endless distraction.”
In around a third of cases, the introduction of subscription and ‘freemium’ models is an approach being taken to boost revenue, with half seining subscriptions as having the most growth potential. High growth potential is also seen in branded content and first-party data sales (both 45%).
It’s that first-party data that scored 4.2 out of 5 as a commercial focus, versus a score of just 2.8 for zero-party data. Moreover, 58% of respondents stated they are trialling or have implemented new identity solutions and are seeing the benefits. More than half (54%) strongly disagreed when asked if they would return to using cookies.
“This survey offers an unrivalled cross-section of the UK digital publishing industry, and it was a pleasure to partner with AOP to gather this year’s responses,” said Theo Luke, Senior Director Inventory Development at The Trade Desk. “The industry has clearly found effective solutions to address the frustrations caused by shifting third-party cookie policies, with growing numbers of publishers adopting new identity tools and already seeing the benefits. By using alternative identifiers, online outlets are laying the foundations for greater revenues, improved accuracy for advertisers, and a better, more streamlined experience for audiences.”
Around the same proportion of publishers are exploring AI efficiencies as last year from 76% to 77%), while the exploration of AI product innovations fell slightly (70% to 63%), as did AI training and policy development (55% to 47%).
Finally, as has become the norm across digital, ESG priorities fell across the board. ESG’s importance to employees fell from 70% to 51%; importance to investors from 51% to 44%; importance to business values from 62% to 44%, and importance to advertisers from 58% to 39%. However, focusing on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) saw more positive responses, with 37% feeling they have an effective DE&I strategy versus 26% last year, while the number that felt there was room for improvement fell from 48% last year to 36%.
“Strengthening publishing fundamentals must not come at the cost of progress towards a fairer, more sustainable, and equitable industry, so I hope the waning ESG focus in this year’s survey is a blip in the data and not a trend,” said Reeves.
